NEWS

‘It’s in my blood’: how rugby managed to unite America’s elite

“I’m sure people ask you lots of things about politics and whatnot,” Gingrich remembers saying. “But I want to ask you about playing rugby.”

Famously or infamously, depending on your view of a notoriously violent sport, Clinton played rugby union at Oxford.

“He got this sort of faraway look in his eye,” Gingrich says, “and he started telling me this story about probably having a concussion but the coach saying, ‘You’re the biggest guy out there, we need you.’ It was fun – he got to step out of being the president for a minute and be a rugger again.”